Welcome to Sugartown (28 page)

“
Hey, I’m not
handing that one over lightly. That’s my daughter you’re erecting a
fucking tent for under this table, but I know how you feel about
her and I know what you did for her, so I’m making an exception
this once.” He’s blushing. Fuck, I wish I had a camera so I could
immortalize this moment forever. It’s funny how much has changed
between the two of us. It’s hard to believe this big, blushing
mountain of a man is the same guy who bailed me up against a wall
and warned me away from his daughter. Now he’s visiting me in
prison and handing over pictures like this.

“
Thank
you.”

“
You’re
welcome,” he grunts.

“
How’s she
doing?”

“
She won’t
admit to it, but I think she’s hurting bad.”

“
I’d give my
left nut to talk to her. Just to hear her voice, just once.” In the
months that I’d been inside I’d used my one phone call a week to
talk to Bob. Seems kind of irrelevant when he visits every Sunday
anyway, but I have no one else to call, and sometimes the need to
speak to someone on the outside even about the most trivial of
things was so great you’d sell your soul for the experience. I only
ever called when I knew she wouldn’t be there to answer. Once no
one had picked up and I hung on, just to listen to the message she
recorded.

“
If she wants
to talk to you she’ll come visit. Until then, you gotta let her
deal with this shit the best way she knows how.”

“
Yeah, I
know. I just wish she’d deal a lot quicker.”

“
Court case
is this week.”

I nod because
this isn’t new information to me, and every time I think about her
having to face that scumbag, knowing I won’t be by her side, I
wanna attack every guard in this place and smash down every wall
that’s keeping me locked away from her. “You’re going,
right?”

“
Finally
getting to see that animal locked away? You bet your arse I’m
going.” His eyes turn a darker shade of blue and he starts gritting
his teeth. A muscle in his jaw pops.

I know how
hard it must be for him to not dish out his own form of punishment
when he sees that little turd-burger around town. If I were on the
outside it would take a fucking miracle for me to let him walk
away. I guess, in a way, it did. That night, if I hadn’t been
thinking of Ana and what she’d think of me if she saw me like that,
I’d have put a bullet right between his eyes and never looked back.
Ana saved me from spending the rest of my days locked in a
cell.

“
You thought
about what you’re gonna do if he gets sentenced to serve time
here?”

“
When,” I
add.

“
If. The
evidence might be concrete but Turner’s got a big old pile of money
and they’ve hired the best defence attorney in the state. He might
walk away from this unscathed.”

“
Then it’s a
good thing I’m up for parole in three months.”

“
Son,” Bob
begins.

“
Yeah, I
know. I just can’t have him out walking around after what he did to
her, you know?”

“
I know, son,
but you can’t be saying shit like that in prison
either.”

I glance down
at the pictures in my hands and sigh. “God, I miss her so fucking
much.”

“
It may not
seem like it, but she misses you, too.” He follows the line of my
gaze and gives me a consolatory clap on the shoulder. “She hasn’t
been the same since the two of you broke up.”

I inhale hard
through my nose to keep the tears at bay. After Mum and Lil died I
went over half my life without ever tearing up, but since I met Ana
it’s like a fucking dam opened up and every couple of months I’m
bawling my eyes out like a fucking pansy-arse girl.

“
Ah, hell
kid,” Bob says when I finally lift my head and jam the heels of my
hands into my eye sockets to keep them from leaking. “It breaks my
heart to see you kids hurtin’ the way you are. She’ll come around,
you’ll see. You just work on keeping your nose clean and you tell
that parole board whatever you have to in order for them to sleep
better at night and you’ll be home in time for
Christmas.”

“
Yeah,” I
agreed, though the thought of spending another Christmas alone held
little appeal. At least inside I’d be spending the day with others.
Despite what Bob had said, I was pretty sure that if Ana hadn’t
come around by now, there was a good chance she wasn’t going to. It
was just another of life’s losses that I’d have to get used to, but
as I sat there, staring down at her picture and talking to her
father, the kind of father I’d never had, I realise that getting
over Ana Belle will be hardest thing I’ve ever done, and the lure
of the white line no longer calls to me the way it used
to.

“
Christmas,”
I say and shake my head in disbelief. “Can’t wait.”

Since I met
Ana my whole life feels as though it’s spiralling out of control.
If I could hold on to her, even just for a minute, I feel like
maybe it would slow down long enough for me to get my bearings, but
the spinning never stops and neither does the hurt. I smile like
I’m excited about coming home, but all I feel is numb and pain,
like the two are trading blows in the ring. Truth is, without Ana,
I have no home. And that hurts more than any of the losses I’ve
encountered so far.

Chapter Twenty
Seven

Ana

The day of
the hearing was quite possibly the worst day of my life, next to
the day my mum died—and the day Scott held me down and stole my
virginity after pulverising my face, that is. Holly had stayed over
the night before, but even her usually cheerful disposition was
absent today. Instead, it was like a black cloud had settled over
the Belle household and there wasn’t a chance in hell it was going
to lift.

I’d made the
decision to allow my lawyer to speak on my behalf, and would be
waiting out the verdict here at home. Despite my bravado in the
supermarket, I couldn’t stand the thought of facing Scott again and
I didn’t trust myself not to go postal if the judge let him walk
free. Our evidence was concrete, the police had collected DNA and
sperm samples from underneath my nails and from the rape kit, and
they’d also taken photographic evidence of the bruises he’d left on
my face and body. I needed to have faith in the system. I needed to
know that the humiliation and horror of having strangers poke and
prod at me wasn’t all for nothing.

Holly and I
walk into the kitchen and my entire family stare up at me with
wide, pitying eyes. My dad is fully dressed for court. He and Kerry
will be sitting in on the hearing. I wanted to be the girl strong
enough to face her attacker and watch as they carted him off to
jail, but I’m not. I’m just trying to deal with what happened the
best way I can, and I hope there’s no shame in that.

Dad walks
over and pulls me into his arms, engulfing me in the smell of
leather and his aftershave. He doesn’t say a word, but after a
minute I felt his big body shaking with unshed tears, and the
carefully constructed wall inside me holding everything together
just crumbles.

Gut wrenching
sobs tear from inside me and fill the room with their weak and
horrible sound. I shake and sink to the floor and Dad sinks with
me. He never once lets me go and he never says a single word, but I
feel safe and loved inside his embrace so I cry out every tear I
have for what Scott Turner had done to me, and I cry some more that
the man I love is behind bars and that my best friend is pregnant
with an unwanted baby and the fact that my mum isn’t here to hold
me today like she should be.

And then I
dry my eyes and I rise and I pour myself a bowl of cereal that I
don’t eat, and I sit down on the couch with my best friend and try
to pretend that today is just like any other.

Five hours
into our chick flick marathon, Holly runs screaming and tearing
through the house to throw up the ten zillion calories she’d just
consumed. I want to throw up too, but for different reasons. I
should get up and make sure she’s okay, but my whole body feels
numb and I don’t think standing would be the best thing for me
right now. Just as she’s coming back from the bathroom, my phone
vibrates against the tabletop. We both freeze as we stare down at
the screen displaying my dad’s picture.

“
You gotta
answer that, Ana.”

I tuck my
hands beneath me and gently rock from side to side. I don’t know if
the swaying is helping or making me feel worse but right now I’m a
ball of nervously sick energy, and it’s the only thing keeping me
sane and not hurling my phone at the wall. “I can’t.”

Holly
snatches up the phone and says, “Hey Bob. No, she’s here. She’s
just having a hard time dealing. Uh-huh, okay, I’ll let her
know.”

She hangs up
the phone, sets it back down on the table and takes my hand in
hers. She gives me a sad smile. Tears spill over her lashes and
onto her cheeks and I feel bile rise up my throat. “Seven years. No
parole.”

The relief I
think I should feel at hearing those words doesn’t come. I’m glad
he’s being locked away, but no amount of time behind bars will ever
bring back what he took from me and what he will continue to take
every time I think about lying down with a man. There is no amount
of years great enough to make up for what he’s sentenced me
to.

Chapter Twenty
Eight

Ana

One Month
On

The phone
rings for a fourth time and I contemplate not answering, but I know
I have to. I’ve already spoken to Holly three times this morning,
one more and I’m going to be late, but I can’t not answer,
especially not today. In just a few short hours, she’ll be taken
into a room to have her baby aborted. I can’t even imagine what she
might be going through, the fear and uncertainty she must feel. If
I could switch places with her I would, in a heartbeat. I hate to
think of my best friend going through this all by herself, and
that’s why I’ll be gluing myself to her side for the entire day. I
will not let her go through this alone.

I pull the
receiver from the cradle and press my ear to my shoulder to hold it
in place while I pour some Nutri-Grain into a bowl.
“Hello?”

There’s
static over the line and then I hear a click and a smooth husky
voice fills my ear. “Ana?”

I sit down
hard in the kitchen chair, knocking over my bowl full of cereal.
There’s milk running all over the tabletop and down onto the floor
but I can’t move to clean it up; my heart’s hammering so hard in my
chest I feel like it might explode. I’m not ready for this. I don’t
know what to say.

“
Ana? You
there?”

“
I’m here,” I
whisper, though I’m at a loss for what comes next.

A beat passes
and I’m beginning to think he might have hung up. I’m wondering if
maybe I should, and then he whispers, “I miss you so fucking much,
baby girl.” And all I can do is hold onto the phone and
cry.

“
I only get
six minutes, darlin’.” There’s so much pain and vulnerability in
his voice I want to reach through the phone and take him in my
arms, but I can’t. The reality that I might never do that again
hits me and I cry harder. “Tell me you’re okay?”

“
I’m fine.
I’m running late to pick someone up, though,” I say and then regret
it instantly. The sound of his voice stirs up so much pain and
bitterness, my heart still clamps in on itself when I think of how
much I still love him and how much I wish it were enough, but I
can’t deny it’s still a good sound to hear. “Are … are they
treating you well?”

He chuckles,
“It’s a prison, Ana, not a day spa. But yeah, I keep my nose clean
and I get by.”

“
Have you
seen him?” I whisper. I know I don’t need to elaborate. We both
know there’s only one person I’d be talking about when it came to
inmates.

“
Yeah, I saw
him. My fist almost saw the inside of his brain, but I walked away.
I’m up for parole soon.”

“
Wow, that’s
great,” I mutter, but I’m only half-listening. I have too many
thoughts spinning around in my head, and my heart feels like it’s
collapsing in on itself.